The Yardman and Mr. Jones
Posted: September 15th, 2011, 11:28 am
At first I was really bummed out, the old Delta 88 coughed six times, then died as a night sky in early afternoon opened it's black mouth are started spitting at me.
Then the sky really opened its jets, began to powerwash the grime off the
once-white rusted body. Even through this opaque wall of acid rain, I could still make out the oasis, Brannon's Pub, a vision of beauty that I ran to full speed ahead, nothing wrong with my accelerator. What choices did I have, sit here in
the disabled car banging my head on the steering wheel, listening to radio ads for Viagra, or watching the beautiful barmaid with the Pegasus tattoo make me a gin and tonic. The choice seemed obvious, Tangeray, slice of lime.
I sidled up onto the bar stool water dripping from my Orioles ball cap and took a long cool sip, aaah. I suddenly heard my mama's words in my head, Son, when life gives you a lemon, in this case an Oldsmobile, make lemonade, and reasoned that mama would have been happy with my choice of drink, lemons and limes being in the same family and all, when suddenly I was interrupted in mid-thought.
A semi-familiar voice from my past, " Member Me ?" I swiveled around to see a mountainous man with two teeth smiling wide as John Brown's barn, surrounded in a fur of reddish gray wire brush hair and beard, "Member me, Mr. Jones, it's Randall, yer old yardman." The puzzle began to take shape, my mind considering the impact what many years and 1500 bottles of cheap vodka could do to a face.
" Randall ! I thought you were...." "Dead ?, he interrupted, " Hell no, I ain't dead, too damn ornery to die young, Mr, Jones, I've already outlived Jesus and Elvis." He shot me a toothless grin about a mile and a half wider than the first one. I said, "Where have you been Randall?"
" Well sir, I was clean fer about six months, Mr. Jones, and I had the money I owe you, I had it, I had it, I had it in my hands, but I gave it to my daughter, found it in an old Anacin bottle after her mother overdosed." I must have been staring with my mouth open 'cause it was easy for me to pour the rest of my drink down my throat, order another one.
" I'm gonna pay ya back, Mr. Jones if it's the last thing I do, every single nickel, but you see mostly ever single dollar I ever made, my wife she stuck it in one of her arms, and then my little girl had her first baby at fifteen, then her second at sixteen, and well I was trying to help 'em best I could."
I sucked down half of my fresh gin tonic.
" I humped a helluva lotta kegs for Budweiser, but when I hurt my back real bad the boss said to me, "Randall we're gonna have to let you go", so now I sleeps underneath a porch over on Weaver Avenue, and I thank god every single day I got such a beautiful daughter, and I talk to her mother in heaven every day too Mr. Jones, and my little girl is so pretty and a real good dancer too, she's making damn good money over at that Gentleman's Club, sometimes 700 dollars a night, and well I don't expect nuthin' from her, she's a young girl, she needs her privacy, her own place, and I don't mind sleepin' under that porch, but I tell ya Mr. Jones, you gotta feed them damn rats, yessir
or they'll start chewin' on yer face."
I slugged the rest of drink down, said to the busty barmaid, " Why don't you just make me two of them this time, hon." Randall took a long pull on his longneck bottle, set the bottle down hard on the bar, slowly, deliberately, grinned at me with those greenish yellow stumps in his mouth, looked up at the mangled tin ceiling and said, " When I put this beer down, I'm going to heaven !"
I didn't have a clue what he meant, but I noticed he was drinking a Budweiser so I roared at him, "Randall ! How in the hell can you drink a Bud after what they did to you ?"
Randall smiled as big as the Baltimore sky, stars twinkling in bloodshot eyes, " "Cause I likes the taste, Mr. Jones..... cause I likes the taste."
Then the sky really opened its jets, began to powerwash the grime off the
once-white rusted body. Even through this opaque wall of acid rain, I could still make out the oasis, Brannon's Pub, a vision of beauty that I ran to full speed ahead, nothing wrong with my accelerator. What choices did I have, sit here in
the disabled car banging my head on the steering wheel, listening to radio ads for Viagra, or watching the beautiful barmaid with the Pegasus tattoo make me a gin and tonic. The choice seemed obvious, Tangeray, slice of lime.
I sidled up onto the bar stool water dripping from my Orioles ball cap and took a long cool sip, aaah. I suddenly heard my mama's words in my head, Son, when life gives you a lemon, in this case an Oldsmobile, make lemonade, and reasoned that mama would have been happy with my choice of drink, lemons and limes being in the same family and all, when suddenly I was interrupted in mid-thought.
A semi-familiar voice from my past, " Member Me ?" I swiveled around to see a mountainous man with two teeth smiling wide as John Brown's barn, surrounded in a fur of reddish gray wire brush hair and beard, "Member me, Mr. Jones, it's Randall, yer old yardman." The puzzle began to take shape, my mind considering the impact what many years and 1500 bottles of cheap vodka could do to a face.
" Randall ! I thought you were...." "Dead ?, he interrupted, " Hell no, I ain't dead, too damn ornery to die young, Mr, Jones, I've already outlived Jesus and Elvis." He shot me a toothless grin about a mile and a half wider than the first one. I said, "Where have you been Randall?"
" Well sir, I was clean fer about six months, Mr. Jones, and I had the money I owe you, I had it, I had it, I had it in my hands, but I gave it to my daughter, found it in an old Anacin bottle after her mother overdosed." I must have been staring with my mouth open 'cause it was easy for me to pour the rest of my drink down my throat, order another one.
" I'm gonna pay ya back, Mr. Jones if it's the last thing I do, every single nickel, but you see mostly ever single dollar I ever made, my wife she stuck it in one of her arms, and then my little girl had her first baby at fifteen, then her second at sixteen, and well I was trying to help 'em best I could."
I sucked down half of my fresh gin tonic.
" I humped a helluva lotta kegs for Budweiser, but when I hurt my back real bad the boss said to me, "Randall we're gonna have to let you go", so now I sleeps underneath a porch over on Weaver Avenue, and I thank god every single day I got such a beautiful daughter, and I talk to her mother in heaven every day too Mr. Jones, and my little girl is so pretty and a real good dancer too, she's making damn good money over at that Gentleman's Club, sometimes 700 dollars a night, and well I don't expect nuthin' from her, she's a young girl, she needs her privacy, her own place, and I don't mind sleepin' under that porch, but I tell ya Mr. Jones, you gotta feed them damn rats, yessir
or they'll start chewin' on yer face."
I slugged the rest of drink down, said to the busty barmaid, " Why don't you just make me two of them this time, hon." Randall took a long pull on his longneck bottle, set the bottle down hard on the bar, slowly, deliberately, grinned at me with those greenish yellow stumps in his mouth, looked up at the mangled tin ceiling and said, " When I put this beer down, I'm going to heaven !"
I didn't have a clue what he meant, but I noticed he was drinking a Budweiser so I roared at him, "Randall ! How in the hell can you drink a Bud after what they did to you ?"
Randall smiled as big as the Baltimore sky, stars twinkling in bloodshot eyes, " "Cause I likes the taste, Mr. Jones..... cause I likes the taste."